The pandemic has severely affected the global market—and not in a good way. Indeed, CNBC reports that nearly one-third of small business owners were forced to stop their in-person operations due to the lockdown. Moreover, 23% of them shut down entirely, albeit temporarily. Fortunately, business executive Vanessa Dodds emphasizes that one way businesses can continue to thrive is if they “put [the] systems and processes in place to pivot.”
Of course, pivoting can have multiple meanings in today’s context—from changing business models (such as offering deliveries) to making the shift from physical to online. So today, we’ll be discussing the tools that you’ll need for the latter.
Video Conferencing Software
Whether you’ll be using it to contact clients or host meetings, video calling is the closest thing you’re going to get to face-to-face conversations. After all, a lot can get lost when sending messages over email. Just be sure to check the security of your chosen software. For example, even though Zoom is free and easy to use, an article by New York Magazine warns that it has a lot of flaws that make it unsafe, from questionable routing to dubious encryption. Instead, look into affordable yet secure options like Microsoft Teams to protect your calls from prying ears.
Project Management Systems
It doesn’t matter if you’re operating solo or with small team, a project management platform can help you track the progress and completion of essential tasks. Depending on how you use it, small business owners on Chron suggest that it can also enable entrepreneurs to “share and collaborate with clients and vendors” much faster. Provide your clients the password to certain projects, and they’ll be able to give feedback, make edits, and review your progress throughout the entirety of your campaigns.
Cloud Storage Solutions
If you want to operate remotely, then you have to make sure that your files can be accessed at any time, in any place. With all your data stored online, cloud solutions provider Box highlights that file sharing via the cloud is only a matter of creating shareable links. With it, the recipient can then preview, edit, or download the file on any device, even if they don’t have an account on the platform. Incidentally, The Balance informs that integrating the cloud this early could prove beneficial to your business in the long run, as it’s much cheaper to scale.
Online Payment Platforms
Do you now offer multiple online payment options
as a result of the recent shift to 
working remotely from home? You can manage your finances much better with a dedicated tracker. A comparison post on Hackernoon features PayPal as a good example. Not only does it allow you to receive and track payments through multiple channels, you also get enterprise solutions (like online reporting and point-of-sale integration) to make the online payment process much easier. Other payment trackers like Inetco, Braintree, Stripe, and Preferred Payments are also good options.
If you want your business to continue operating, then you have to be able to adapt to current circumstances. Now, it means porting most, if not all, your operations online. The right tools can help you in your endeavors.
